A minimum 1,500-metre drill program has begun at Lakeland Resources’ (TSXV:LK) Star/Gibbon’s Creek uranium project on the Athabasca Basin’s north-central edge. Announced January 27, the campaign follows recent and historic exploration that found anomalous uranium, nickel, gold, platinum group elements and rare earths.

A sampling program helped define drill targets for Lakeland Resources’ Phase I campaign at Star/Gibbon’s Creek.

“The augmentation of historic exploration data with recent exploration results for these properties, coupled with a modern understanding of uranium mineralization in the Basin, has greatly enhanced the potential of this Phase I drill program,” said Lakeland president/CEO Jonathan Armes. “The company is well funded to carry out exploration on a number of its wholly owned Basin properties, and we expect a very busy and exciting year.” Last year’s financings raised over $5.1 million.

Star and Gibbon’s Creek are two adjacent properties explored as a single project. The 12,771-hectare Gibbon’s features some of the Basin’s highest RadonEx readings and a radioactive boulder field grading up to 4.28% U3O8. Surface samples from the Star property have revealed gold up to 5.7 grams per tonne, PGEs up to 0.75 g/t, rare earth elements up to 6.9% TREO, as well as highly anomalous uranium. All of that suggests a robust hydrothermal system, Lakeland stated.

The Star sampling program focused on part of a basement outcrop covering about 350 metres by 700 metres. Linking it to the boulder field is a structural corridor that’s been reactivated by hydrothermal fluids many times over the millennia.

The project also benefits from shallow depths to the unconformity, nearby roads and power lines, and the town of Stony Rapids a few kilometres away.

Holding one of the Basin’s largest land packages, the company has two other drill-ready projects, Lazy Edward Bay on the Basin’s southern rim and Newnham Lake, east of Star/Gibbon’s.

In December Lakeland announced a 50% option on its Fond du Lac uranium property by Takara Resources TSXV:TKK.